EVERETT — There are nearly a dozen hats still sitting on the training table outside the Everett Silvertips’s Xfinity Arena dressing room, the remnants of those tossed on the ice to honor Patrick Bajkov’s second-period hat trick in the Tips’ 4-3 win over Medicine Hat last Friday.
It was the first three-goal game turned in by a Silvertips player this year and the first in Bajkov’s WHL career, a moment he described as “surreal” when the hats began raining down from the spectators.
“It feels pretty good,” said Bajkov, whose team welcomes division rival Tri-City to Xfinity Arena at 7:05 p.m. Wednesday. “I’m pretty confident going out with my linemates, Fonzy and Zwergs, they’re two highly skilled guys. I’d say the confidence on our line is pretty good throughout the season so far.”
“Fonzy,” of course, is long-time linemate and fellow 1997-born forward Matt Fonteyne, while “Zwergs” is overager Dominic Zwerger whom the Tips acquired from Spokane early in the season. Those two have contributed mightily to Bajkov’s team-leading 14 goals and 21 assists in what has the appearance of a breakout season for the Everett winger.
“Every single game he’s playing the way he can, and he’s really consistent this year, which really helps with points and development,” said Fonteyne, who has six goals and 12 assists in 19 games. “I think the biggest thing for him is just working as hard as he can and it’s paying off for him.”
Bajkov scored nine goals with 10 assists as a rookie in 2013-14 and followed that with a 23-goal, 22-assist effort the following year as the Tips won the U.S. Division. But in his draft season last year his goals dropped to 18 while his 46 total points were only one better than he had as a 17-year-old.
“Last year points-wise I don’t think I did what I was capable of doing,” Bajkov said. “But I think this year is an important year to follow up with that and I think so far I’m pretty happy with it.”
The Nanaimo, B.C., native is widely recognized as one of the most-skilled players on the Tips roster and perhaps Everett’s best playmaker. Bajkov went undrafted in last June’s NHL draft, but is making a strong case to be taken as a 19-year-old next year.
“You get older and smarter and I think on the skill side of it he’s skilled and confident,” Everett head coach Kevin Constantine said. “I think before he was skilled, but young. Now I think he’s skilled and confident. But I think the biggest growth has been in his approach to the game from the mental side of it. I think he’s so much better there.”
That new-found confidence was present from Game 1 of the season, Bajkov said. The six-foot, 180-pounder demonstrated his playmaking abilities with four assists through Everett’s first two games and has points in 20 of Everett’s 27 games this season.
His longest pointless drought came earlier this month when Kamloops, Lethbridge and Seattle held him off the score sheet in consecutive games. But he has five goals and two assists in the ensuing four games as the Silvertips (20-3-4-0, 44 points) take a five-game winning streak into tonight’s game.
Bajkov and his linemates combined for seven points Friday as the Tips’ victory propelled them to the top of the overall standings for the time being by knocking off then-first place Medicine Hat in the battle for WHL supremacy.
Bajkov’s first two goals came within 15 seconds of one another in the second period to turn a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead. He capped the hat trick four minutes later.
“Especially when stuff is going well you get more confident with the puck and that’s been showing in his game,” said Fonteyne, who assisted Bajkov twice on Friday. “The shots that he took are pinpoint accurate so that just goes to show how confident he is right now.”
The Tips can use his confidence in the following weeks. They embark on a stretch of four games in five nights this week and will be without goaltender Carter Hart and Noah Juulsen after this weekend as both players head to Team Canada’s World Juniors training camp.
But the Tips have weathered the absence of Juulsen and Hart earlier this season when both missed a handful of games to attend NHL training camps. Everett has continued to be one of the top teams in the league this year — a fact to which even Bajkov admitted surprise.
“At the start yeah a little bit,” Bajkov said. “But with the character we have in that dressing room and the confidence we’ve built over the first half of the year so far, it doesn’t surprise me at all with our work ethic.”
It will also come as no surprise if a few more hats find their way to the hallway training table.
For the latest Silvertips news follow Jesse Geleynse on Twitter.
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